


Ex Machina

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Arts & Sciences RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-22
Updated: 2008-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1636142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition. Love is an entirely different matter all together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ex Machina

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, based loosely on historical fact. I do not claim to know or own Alan Turing ( oh, but if only I could own Alan Turing! ) or Christopher Morcom. These people belong to themselves, and I did not mean any harm when basing my fictional characters on them.   
>  A big, gigantic thank you goes out to my fabulous beta: Kangeiko. You are amazing! 
> 
> Written for soundingsea

 

 

 

A flock of robins erupts into the air, chirping furiously as the snow-covered bushes shiver in the early morning sunlight. Moments later Alan Turing crashes through the wood on an old, rusted bicycle, his arms flailing in an effort to maintain balance and his legs pedaling feverishly.

"Christopher!"

A few more meters across the muddy, open fields, a sharp left turn onto gravel, and Turing skids to a stop in front of the Lyon House, showering Christopher Morcom, who is standing on the first step with his satchel slung over his shoulder, with a mixture of mud and melting snow.

" _Alan_!" Morcom drops his satchel and groans, shaking mud from his fingers. "I _just_ had this cleaned."

" _Oh_ , oh, I'm _so_ sorry, Christopher—" Turing stumbles off his bicycle in a hurry, rushing over to help brush snow from Morcom's uniform. "I didn't see the puddle, and—"

"That's because you never pay _attention_." Morcom chides, although he can't help but smile at Turing's flustered appearance. He brushes off the last of the dirt from his school uniform, thankful that the cloth is dark enough to hide most of the stains. "Not _too_ much damage done, at least."

"Uh," Turing flushes, and makes an elaborate hand gesture in the direction of Morcom's neck. "Your tie's done wrong."

"Eh? Is it?" Morcom tilts his head back and juts his chin out, fingers fiddling with the tie. "Would you mind fixing it, then? I never could get the hang of these things."

Turing's blush deepens, and he hopes, desperately, that Morcom would attribute it to the chill in the mid-winter air. He closes the distance between their bodies, willing his hands to stop quivering as he reaches out and clasps Morcom's tie, loosening it.

Tie-tying is a science, according to Turing. The material of the tie matters, as do the length and width. Even more important is the exact division of cloth on either side of the neck, which acts as a fulcrum for the tapered lengths of silk. Turing's fingers are quick and nimble, first looping the tie here and there, then tucking it in and folding it through, until finally he's pulling the knot snug against Christopher's pale, thin neck, feeling a weak, fluttering heartbeat against his fingertips.

"Are you always this serious when you're tying ties?" Morcom asks, teasing. He disentangles Turing's hands from his lapels gently, and dusts himself off, straightening his coat jacket. He adjusts his tie, out of habit, quietly admiring Turing's handiwork.

"I—"

"I'm _joking_ , Alan." Morcom grins again, and Turing is briefly dazzled by his smile. "Thank you for helping me."

Turing shrugs in reply, and glances at his watch with feigned nonchalance. "We should go if we're going to catch the maths lecture."

"Ah, I can't." Morcom nods off toward the distance, and Turing follows his gaze. Just past a neat gravel road trimmed on either side with bushes and clusters of trees, beyond the sudden flat swath of the tennis courts, Turing can make out the peaked brown roof of Yeatman Hospital.

"The _hospital_?" Turing meets Morcom's gaze intently. " _Again_? I thought you were—"

Morcom shakes his head. "I'm _fine_ , Alan. Just a little check-up." He smiles as he begins to walk down the gravel path toward the main campus. Turing scurries after him, dragging his bicycle along. "But _you're_ not going to be fine if you're late for maths again."

" _Oh_ ," Turing sighs. "You really shouldn't leave me to fend for myself against Eperson, you know." He pauses, basking in sound of Morcom's laughter. "I know what'll happen; he'll forget the topic of his lecture and start on the physics of sound, just so he can mention that bloody gramophone again."

"You didn't like it?" Morcom asks in surprise, kicking a stray rock from his path. "I thought you would've enjoyed the complexity of the music we played. Even _you_ must agree that Mozart's symphonies are pleasing to the ear."

Turing shrugs. "I agree there's a certain mathematical complexity to his compositions, particularly in regards to chromatic harmony. I thought it was _interesting_ , but I admit it was difficult for me to grasp the _purpose_."

"The purpose, Alan, is _entertainment_."

"Mathematics is entertaining," Turing replies, somewhat defensively.

"There is more to the world than maths, Alan." Morcom laughs, shaking his head. "And speaking of — you're going to be late."

Turing stops at a fork in the road, and toes the ground. He turns suddenly, decisively, and holds Morcom's gaze. "So you're going to miss the entire lecture?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Then may I meet you afterwards for a ride down to the river? For lunch?"

Morcom catches the hopeful expression that flits across Turing's face and he sighs, shaking his head sadly. "I don't think I can do it today, Alan. It's too far for me." He watches as Turing visibly deflates, then adds, "But I could meet you on the playing fields. For lunch."

Turing lights up, beaming. "I would like that."

"Okay." Morcom smiles again, heading down the walkway toward the hospital. "I'll come and meet you after lecture, then."

"I'll wait for you," Turing calls after him, waving, as Morcom picks his way down the path. A moment later he climbs on his bicycle and begins pedaling slowly toward the lecture hall, stealing glances in Morcom's direction until a copse of flowering oaks finally blocks his view.

Turing glances at his watch. "Oh, _bollocks_."

\--   


The corridors of Yeatman Hospital smell strongly of fear and faintly of death, or at least, that's how Alan Turing would have described them if he had an inclination for prose. Instead, he thinks clinically, so when he walks under the entrance arch and past the wrought-iron gates, through the sliding glass doors and into the hospital corridors, all he can smell is detergent.

It's enough, though, and his stomach turns at the stench of disinfectant. He signs in at the front desk and memorizes the room Morcom is in — 153, how _perfect_ — before tucking his hands in his pockets and meandering down the hall. Turing walks slowly, deliberately, taking care to avoid dips in the ancient linoleum. He stands outside Morcom's door for several minutes, calculations skipping through his head, afraid of what he might see when he pushes the door open.

Turing isn't brave enough.

The door opens suddenly and a nurse stares at him, mimicking his surprised expression, before she looks over her shoulder and says, "Mr. Morcom, you have a visitor."

Turing can't help it, now.

Morcom is lying on a hospital bed, in a hospital gown, with hospital-clean sheets, sterile and white, pulled up to his armpits. He looks pale but cheerful, and he grins from ear to ear when Turing finally shuffles into the room nervously.

"Alan!" Morcom's smile could light up the world. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"It has." Turing moves forward slowly, heading toward the bed, rifling through his memories of hospitals. He's nervous, because he doesn't like hospitals, and he isn't sure exactly how sick Morcom is. He wants to ask why Morcom has missed the past week of lecture, but he knows enough not to.

"How are you?" Morcom asks, his voice sounding strained. There are dark circles under his eyes, and bandages on the insides of his elbows where the nurses have drawn blood — or given blood, Turing can never tell — and there's a flu mask tucked under Morcom's chin. He looks exhausted.

"I've been better," Turing says, without thinking. He blinks and stutters an apology, "I mean, uh—I, I could use your help. With Eperson. He keeps ignoring my questions and then he takes points off my assignments, saying it's punishment because I interrupt his lectures so much."

This gets a laugh out of Morcom, light and raspy, and Turing finally cracks a smile and collapses into a folding chair set up next to the hospital bed.

"How are you? Aside from the, uh—" Turing waves a hand, indicating Morcom's mummified figure, tucked deep into the mattress, "—the illness thing."

" _Bored_ ," Morcom replies, still smiling. "You won't believe how absolutely _dull_ it is here. They took away my maths books, telling me that I would exert myself studying them. All they want me to do is sleep, sleep, _sleep_." Morcom rolls his eyes. "And don't even get me stated on the _food_."

"Oh." Turing perks up. "I almost _forgot_."

He glances around conspiratorially, but the room door is closed and there are no other patients in the bunks. Turing fishes in his coat pocket, first one, then the other, the panic seizing his face for an instant as he realizes—ah, no, it's in the last pocket. He pulls out a small package wrapped in paper, and hands it to Morcom, who stares at it quizzically.

"I brought you a cheese sandwich. Gloucester. But I couldn't get you any tomatoes," Turing says, sadly. "I didn't have anywhere to hide them."

"Why, Alan, you're an outright delinquent!" Morcom says, laughing as he unwraps the sandwich and takes a bite.

"It's _your_ bad influence." Turing replies with a smile, settling more comfortably into the chair. The hospital room feels less suffocating, more inviting now that Morcom is snickering around the edges of a sandwich, his eyes twinkling with mischief.

"How are the lectures going?" He asks, between bites. "Am I missing anything important?"

Turing rolls his eyes and leans back, tucking his arms against his chest. "Like I said, Eperson spends more time discussing composers than he does calculus. I can't imagine why he calls himself a mathematician, other than to vex me." Turing shrugs. "He didn't even seem interested in my latest theorem."

"To be fair, Alan, you have a new theorem every week." Morcom replies, grinning.

Turing ignores the jab. "Would you like to hear about it?"

Morcom shrugs and finishes off the sandwich, chewing thoughtfully. "Of course."

"I think a visual will help," Turing says, sitting up. He takes the brown paper from Morcom and tears it into two equal halves, scrunching them up into ragged balls and placing them a few inches apart on a flat section of the hospital sheets. Morcom leans forward with interest, adjusting his position on the bed in order to better view what Turing is building.

"Uh-huh, that looks pretty complex." Morcom says, half under his breath, while Turing spends several minutes arranging the two clumps of paper.

"It's... the explanation is more advanced..." Turing replies, defensively. "Anyway. It's like this. Say you have this point, right? Point A." He points at one of the balls. "And it's not really a location, just a... a different aspect. Arrangement, maybe. Or configuration. When you're standing at Point A, you're configured in some arbitrary way, right? But at Point B—" Turing slides his hands across the mattress and taps the second ball. "Your configuration changes. So when you're at Point A, you look like so, and when you're at Point B you've changed. To get from one to the other you have to go through some transition state, right?" Here, Morcom is astonished to see Turing pick a loose thread from his suit and string it between the two balls. "It's a bridge, you get it?"

"I think I get the picture, Alan," Morcom says. "I just don't get the _point_."

"Well, say that you're in Point A. If you're at A, you have a certain function to perform, some action. When you complete that action, that lets you go to Point B through the transition state, and once you get to Point B, you have a new function to perform, okay?"

"Yes, that makes sense. How is this revolutionary?"

"The _application_ , Chris." Turing smiles, leaning on the bed. "There could, theoretically, be an infinite amount of these points, each of which has an infinite amount of actions, right? You start at some arbitrary point, do an action, and the transition path that you take to get to the next point _depends_ on the outcome of the action at the first point, you get it?"

Morcom shrugs. "I still don't understand why this is so astonishing. You're describing basic algorithmic computation."

"Yes, I am. That's the _point_." Turing's grin widens. "The best part is that since there are an infinite amount of connections and an infinite amount of states, all you really need to know is where you came from and where you're going. You need to know how you got to Point X, which is what I'm going to call this arbitrary point _here_ —" Turing picks up one of the paper balls, tossing it in the air and catching it again, "—because how you got to Point X determines your function once you get there. And then once you do your function, that determines how you leave Point X, right?" Turing pauses dramatically, holding the ball up for inspection. "So there's no need for elaborate computation! It simplifies everything."

"I still don't see the novelty." Morcom replies, shrugging.

"It's not really... well, it's a simple description, yes, and it makes sense right _now_. But I've been trying to develop a proof and it's more difficult than you can imagine. For example, if you're in a given state _n_ , you'd first have to find the probability of _getting_ there, and the probability of performing some action—" Turing pauses, frowning. "In fact, the only probability you're sure of is that once you've performed a function, you absolutely _must_ continue on. But for an infinite amount of states and transitions..."

"You should make the states finite," Morcom suggests. "Who needs an infinite amount of possibilities?"

"Well, people." Turing replies, looking surprised. "Imagine if you could actually model a human thought process through computation!"

Morcom frowns. "That would..."

"I know what you're thinking," Turing says, smiling. "You're thinking it would be impossible, because of complexity. But if everything is simplified into discrete steps..."

"It would still take forever."

"Well, yes." Turing leans back against the chair, sighing in defeat. "I never claimed it wouldn't. But I suppose you could monitor progress by adding on a counter, or something. Some kind of instrument that just measures the steps taken, outside the actual model."

"Sounds complicated." Morcom offers, picking at his hospital gown.

"You can see where I would like your input on—"

Turing is cut short when Morcom coughs once. Twice. Three times, weakly, and suddenly he's coughing uncontrollably, holding the flu mask in front of his face. His body spasms and snaps against the pillows like a twig in a tornado, and he wheezes for a moment before sinking down into the mattress. Morcom tucks the mask back under his chin and takes a breath, slowly, before he flashes Turing another one of his dazzling smiles.

"Sorry, what were you saying?"

Turing stiffens, and pries his gaze from the flu mask and focuses on Morcom's pallid, sunken face. "I was... I..."

Outside the hospital, the wind ducks and twists through the minute arches of the building's decorations, swirling flakes of snow in its wake. It whistles through the trees and howls as it sweeps through the outer corridors. For an instant, Alan Turing is very aware of the cold.

"What am I thinking? I shouldn't be bothering you with this stuff." He says, reaching out to grasp Morcom's hands between his own. They are thin and cold, like icicles. "You should be resting, and getting better."

Morcom rolls his eyes. "Please, Alan. _All_ I've been doing is _resting_. I was enjoying this conversation before you became all stuffy." He settles back against the pillows, finding comfort in the warmth of Turing's hands. "Tell me more about your little counting contraption."

Turing stares at him for some time, clutching Morcom's hands between his own and squeezing ever so gently, as if he is afraid of breaking something. The older boy looks at him expectantly, still smiling, and Turing finally gives in.

"They don't exactly _compute_ , Chris, as I said before," Turing says. "They _perform_. Imagine you had a series of instructions, an algorithm, and you gave it to a simple machine. The machine would step through the instructions one by one, giving you a final output." Turing taps each of Morcom's fingers in turn, feeling bone under his fingertips. "But what if your instructions were infinite? What if you were feeding instructions into the machine while the machine was performing the tasks, and what if the instructions you chose depended on the state of the machine?"

"Mm." Morcom nods, stifling a yawn. He smiles at Turing in the sleepy way of one who wants, desperately, to pay attention to the rest of the conversation, but is unable to convey this desire to the rest of his body. "Go on."

"Right, yes." Turing squeezes Morcom's hands, and the older boy closes his eyes and sighs. "My thought was that perhaps you could model human intelligence like this. You know, we receive instructions from other people, and we act according to what we receive, but the set of instructions is infinite." Not _exactly_ infinite, Turing knows, because people have to die sometime, but it's not an addendum he's willing to make. "I was thinking, we could use this to test if things were intelligent. Animals or machines, maybe. You know, feed them instructions and see what pops out on the other end."

"Mm." Morcom moves his lips, but his eyes are closed and his breathing is slow and steady. Turing sighs, and disentangles himself from the older boy. He rises, and pulls a thin wool blanket from another bed, covering Morcom with it and tucking it up to his chin.

"But maybe it's a stupid idea," Turing says, whispering against a stray lock of Morcom's hair, as he kisses the older boy on the forehead. Just once, so lightly that he can barely feel it himself. Morcom sighs, and shifts around on the bed, fast asleep.

Turing glances out the window. The snow falls steadily, dusting the playing fields and the building up in the corners of the windowpane. He turns back to Morcom, rearranges the pile of blankets on the bed, and finally walks out the door.

Alan Turing leaves the way he came: walking slowly and deliberately, ignoring the clinical chill of the hospital, the smell of disinfectant burning his nostrils. And if the stench of detergent makes his nose run, if the cold, icy wind makes his eyes sting, he doesn't notice.

 


End file.
